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Meet this week's winner of India's #COVIDSoldiers, Paritosh Pant from Mumbai. ⁠
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Paritosh, a restaurateur from Mumbai, owned three bespoke cafes in Navi Mumbai, which were being run by people with hearing disabilities. These cafes eventually had to be closed down due to the pandemic. ⁠
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With the announcement of the countrywide lockdown in March 2020, most daily wagers of Mumbai lost their only means of livelihood. They had no savings to tide over the pandemic, and were facing slow but certain death due to starvation.⁠
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Paritosh started by floating the idea of a community kitchen on social media, and people started replying. This included locals from Govandi, which hosts Mumbai’s oldest and biggest waste dumping ground. ⁠
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During the first wave of COVID-19, a community kitchen was set-up with the help of local volunteers, who could cook, pack and distribute nutritious food packets to the needy. Subsequently, Paritosh also started distributing dry ration, which he is currently delivering to more than 2,600 families every week. He and his team of over 250 volunteers actively deliver ration on-ground once every week to 45 sub-sections within the neighbourhood.⁠
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He set up a safe and efficient system to solve a local problem through community participation. Called the Feeding from Far Initiative, his crowdfunding campaign has attracted nearly 11,000 donors from more than 500 cities globally to contribute Rs 4.6 crore. These funds have been utilised to home deliver more than 30 lakh meals, of which more than 16 lakh (over 2 lakh per week) were during the second wave. A large fraction of Paritosh’s beneficiaries are widows, single-mothers, the blind, and disabled persons.⁠
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He approached communication for the crowd funding campaign by generating empathy, focussing on the positive, and providing hopeful and empowering messages and updates. This campaign empowered the community with local resources and systems and inspired hyperlocal volunteerism.⁠
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